If Tomorrow Never Comes
by littlesheep
Summary: Will bad news and the memory they bring back to the surface finally get Mac to move forward before it might be too late? It's emotional, it's a somewhat fluffy, it's a little hot and it's VERY SMacked all the way. Complete, for now at least [StellaMac]
1. Chapter 1

**You wanted it – you get it. It features the song "If Tomorrow Never Comes" by Ronan Keating – a song that I always thought I couldn't use because the story it tells doesn't go with a relationship that didn't even start yet (which is my preferred StellaMac plot). And then I thought 'what if I just change the meaning?' – and suddenly it worked…**

**Consider it a little treat and goodie for you great reviewers who are so patiently waiting for them to get together in "If Love Would Be Easy…" (if you didn't read that one yet, what are you waiting for?? #gg#) – it's a little "StellaMacNugget" if you want ;-)**

**This story is rather short and therefore more intense – it is very emotional and… Get out your hankies and read :-)**

**Disclaimer** All the original characters belong to their owners - except for Mac. _**Mac belongs to Stella**_

**-**

**  
**_**Chapter 1**_

It was Thursday and so far nothing indicated that it would be different from any other Thursday. The only exception to being completely routine was that she was assigned to the late shift for one week, but this was nothing special. Every once in a while the teams would switch shifts for a week or two.

Stella was just about to get ready for work when she heard noise from the corridor. Something was rumbling in front of her apartment door. She left the kitchen and went to the door.

_This building definitely needs a doorman, I wonder if that's some homeless guy or just one of those freaky kids again. Guess I better go and check it out before I leave…_

She peeked through the spy hole and slightly cringed.

_What the hell…_

She shook her head and opened the door. Mac, who was just trying to balance himself by leaning against it, practically stumbled right into her arms. Stella tried to keep him from falling by grabbing for the doorframe. After a short struggle, she managed to get him inside and close the door behind him.

"What… Mac, what are you doing here and please don't tell me you drove here yourself…" she asked bewildered and concerned after a closer look at his appearance.

He was drunk. Definitely drunk. All the years that they had known each other, she never saw him drinking anything else than an occasional beer. And the bottle of whiskey in his hand was almost half empty.

This wasn't good at all.

And besides – their shift was about to start in a little over an hour. No way that he would be able to make it to work in this state…

"Come here, sit down," she ordered him and pushed him onto a chair at the kitchen table while taking the bottle from him.

Then she prepared a glass of water and returned after getting two Aspirins from the medicine cabinet in her bathroom.

"Take these!"

_You're sure gonna need them…_

She watched him as he obediently swallowed the pills. He was sitting there like the picture of misery. She knew she had to do something, but she also had to go to work. And since Mac was clearly unable to go, she had to find an excuse for that as well.

"Look, Mac, I really need to go to work now, but I promise – I will be back as soon as I can. I just need to…"

… _find a good explanation why you won't show up at work and I at the same time leave early…_

He grabbed her arm and looked up at her pleadingly.

"Don't leave… Please! Everyone is leaving me, I don't wanna be alone. Can't you just stay with me??" he whined.

Stella sighed. Alcohol certainly wasn't good if someone wasn't used to it.

"Come on, you should get some sleep," she announced, ignoring his babbling.

After a quick look into her living room she figured that the couch wouldn't be a good place for him right now. One uncoordinated move and he would fall off and probably hurt his head at the coffee table or worse. She carefully helped him up and tried to conduct him towards the bedroom door.

"Where are we going?" he mumbled while steadying himself by leaning against her.

"You are going to bed, I am going to work!" Stella firmly announced.

She successfully managed to get him into her bed and pulled the comforter over him after taking his shoes off. Despite her worries that it might take longer to convince him to stay, he dozed off immediately.

_Phew, that could have been worse… Maybe I'm lucky enough that he just sleeps through until I get back._

Stella returned to the kitchen and wrote a short note for him in case he woke up before she got back home. Then she turned to leave. At the door she remembered something and quickly headed back to the kitchen.

"And Jack Daniels is coming with me!" she determined and grabbed the bottle that she had left on the kitchen counter earlier.

_I better put this in the dumpster downstairs, who knows what will happen if those two guys have another encounter while I'm gone…_

XXXXX

"Hey Stella, there you are finally!" Danny announced when she arrived at the lab.

Ten minutes late, no big deal…

Normally she would have been in half an hour before the shift started, but ten minutes shouldn't be such a problem. Especially since the boss was sleeping off in her bed right now…

"What's the rush? Anything happened?" she wondered.

"Have you seen Mac? Everyone's looking for him… ME wanted to update him on results from a case he works on, DA called three times to fix a time for a meeting, HR needs information regarding personnel files and …" he paused.

Stella rolled her eyes.

_Why in God's name did something like this have to happen exactly the day where Mac wasn't here? Sounds almost as if I'm gonna have to spend a little more time covering here than I thought…_

"Mac won't come in today. He … went over to Jersey to interview a witness and asked me to meet him there. Traffic is a bitch today, so it wouldn't have made sense to come in and pick me up here. I will take care of the other stuff and then clock out, you can reach me on my cell the rest of the night, okay?"

"Sure, whatever…" Danny shrugged and left her alone.

"Okay, that one was easy," Stella mumbled to herself. "Now on to the next one…"

XXXXX

Five hours later, Stella sat back in her chair and took a deep breath.

_Okay, let's see if we got everything… I talked to the ME about Mac's case and finished working on the evidence, I called the DA and arranged for a meeting with Mac and I finished the personnel files and had them sent over to Human Resources for a review. And last but not least, I processed the scene of a traffic accident with Lindsay which turned out to be an attempted suicide._

Five hours and only half the shift was over. Stella looked at her watch and then out through the glass doors of her office. Everything was quiet now, so she figured it would be a good time to sneak out and find out what was going on with Mac.

Danny and Lindsay would know where to find her and besides she had told Danny earlier that she would have to meet Mac somewhere. He didn't have to know it was her apartment, not Jersey. And the fact that she had told him this five hours ago and he wasn't wondering that she was still at the lab and that it wouldn't make any sense to interview a witness now in the middle of the night – just good for her, no need for further excuses.

XXXXX

Back home, Stella quietly walked over to her bedroom. When she noticed that Mac was still sleeping, she headed to the bathroom and took a quick shower. She heard the bedroom door when she was preparing dinner in the kitchen afterwards.

Moments later, Mac showed up in the open door.

"Hey there, feeling any better?" she softly asked him.

He didn't reply, just silently took a seat at the table. His lips pressed together, he looked down at the table in front of him, unable to look her in the eyes. Stella turned the gas off and walked over to him. She pulled another chair next to his and sat down, putting her right arm around his shoulders.

"Wanna talk about it?" she gave him an encouraging smile.

He looked up, his gaze locked with hers for a moment. He tried to fight the tears that started filling his eyes. Stella took his left hand into hers and softly pressed it.

"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have…" he started.

She quickly pressed a finger on his lips.

"Sh-sh, don't. It's okay, just tell me if you want to talk and if not, it's okay. We can eat a little and talk later. Or not talk at all if you don't feel like it. It's just gonna be okay. You know that I'm there for you if you need me."

He blinked briefly and nodded.

"Yesterday there was a report about an attack against a military base in Afghanistan on the news. Just like any other day all the time. Another attack, again some US soldiers killed. Only this time…" Mac's voice started shaking a little. He cleared his throat before continuing.

"This morning I got a call from a guy who served in the same unit with me at the Marines, he's at the Pentagon now. One of the guys who got killed yesterday was once my best buddy…"

"Mac, I'm so sorry…" Stella gently stroked the back of his hand.

"You know, we did everything together. We went to college together, we joined the Marines together, we fought together in Beirut and other places. He was a Marine with all his heart and we always wanted to serve our country together…"

"What happened?"

"On one of our trips back home, I met Claire. After that, things weren't the same anymore. I wanted to be back home when we were out on a mission and she was worried when I was away for so long. So I quit the Marines and joined the police force instead. He never understood it. We kept in touch, but it wasn't the same anymore. And now he has died in the line of duty… I know this is stupid, but I feel guilty, responsible and apart from that…"

"Mac," Stella interrupted him, firmly holding his hand. "This is not your fault, it was his decision to be a soldier, just as it is for each of the guys who are out there somewhere to serve our country. You can't blame yourself for his death just because you decided to go another way in your life."

"I know," he sighed. "It's just not only that…"

Stella waited for him to go on, but he wouldn't. She knew she couldn't push him, Mac wasn't the kind of person who responded to that. She would have to wait until he was ready to open up on his own.

"We should get a little to eat now, both of us," she ordered and got up to get the food she had prepared on the table.

They ate in silence and Stella noticed that he slowly started to relax when they started watching some TV after dinner. Both of them enjoyed the physical proximity without speaking it out loud. Stella instinctively snuggled up closer to him when he gently put his arm around her shoulders. Neither of them really followed the program on the screen, both kept following their own thoughts – until the sound of Stella's cell phone interrupted the silence.

"Crap…" she mumbled while she reluctantly parted from his semi-embrace.

"Danny… Yeah, what is it? … Okay, I'm on my way, I'll meet you there," she said and turned around.

"I'm sorry, Mac. I'm gonna have to leave, they need me at a crime scene and technically I'm on call now."

"Want me to come with you?" he asked.

"Certainly not. I don't wanna patronize you, but you shouldn't be going anywhere today. Nobody needs to know what happened today, I told them you wouldn't be in today, that we would meet for interviewing a witness in Jersey. It's no problem, I can handle that alone. Just need to supervise, check things out. The others can do the rest. Will you be okay alone for a while? I should be back soon."

"Stella?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I … I mean, can I stay here tonight? I mean, I don't want to, you know …" he struggled.

"You shouldn't be alone tonight, of course you stay here," she determined. "You can have the bed, I don't know when I'll be back. I'll sleep on the couch then. Just make yourself comfortable."

"But I can't sleep in your bed…" he weakly objected.

"I don't wanna intimidate you," she grinned. "But you already did sleep in my bed today, so just go back there. It's okay, Mac. See you later!"

She pressed a light kiss on his cheek to show him there was no reason to worry and turned to leave before he could object any further.

Mac took a deep breath and tried to figure if he should go on watching TV or go back to bed and get some more sleep. He was definitely struggling with a severe hangover and sleep might be the best solution to deal with it. Just that this time, he was very well aware that it would be her bed he would lie in…

TBC

-

**Liked it? Wanna have the rest, too??? Then please review and let me know! ;-)**

**xxxlittlesheepxxx**


	2. Chapter 2

**Few comments to everyone next to the individual review replies I sent out earlier:**

**Yes, this one is shorter (at least in number of chapters), but I MIGHT consider continuing it later, not yet sure. For now, this is the final chapter. As I mentioned before, I wanted to give you a little goodie before you all jump from a bridge out of frustration about "If Love Would Be Easy" ;-)))**

**Why M-rated? Because it has two chapters, not just one.**

**Features the song "If Tomorrow Never Comes" by Ronan Keating – even if you don't know it, don't skip the lyrics when reading, they are an essential part of the story.**

**And last but not least: I'm a vegetarian – neither do I want lamb chops, nor do I wanna be lamp chops! ;-))**

**Your turn – please review! Oh – okay… You may read first and then review ;-)**

**-**

_**Chapter 2**_

It was about 3:30 a.m. and Mac was still awake. He was lying on his back, his head leaning against the headboard of the bed. He looked down to his right side. Stella was sleeping peacefully, her head trustingly resting on his chest, his right arm protectively wrapped around her body. When she had returned from work, she had insisted that he would take the bed and when he had kept refusing, she had decided that the bed would be big enough for both of them and she hadn't accepted his objections.

At some point when she was fast asleep, she had started huddling up against him. Now more than ever before he couldn't find any sleep.

_Sometimes late at night  
I lie awake and watch her sleeping_

_She's lost in peaceful dreams  
So I turn out the lights and lay there in the dark  
_

_And the thought crosses my mind  
If I never wake up in the morning  
Would she ever doubt the way I feel  
About her in my heart  
_

His mind wandered back to the events of this day. He couldn't explain why he had been drinking, but he knew well enough why he ended up at Stella's place when he didn't see another way out. She was the one person that made him feel safe, whom he knew was always there for him, no matter what.

He smiled when he felt her stretching at his side. He softly caressed her check with his thumb which caused her to moan in her sleep.

_If tomorrow never comes  
Will she know how much I loved her  
Did I try in every way to show her every day  
That she's my only one  
_

_And if my time on earth were through  
And she must face the world without me  
Is the love I gave her in the past  
Gonna be enough to last  
_

_If tomorrow never comes_

He knew that their jobs as CSIs weren't less dangerous than those of the Marines overseas. They were totally different, the risks were others, but still in both cases there was a permanent danger involved. Any day could be the last – and even if you weren't working in a dangerous field, life could be over so quickly.

And then it would be too late.

Sadness came over him when he remembered the last morning with Claire. They had been arguing because of his work, she was mad because he rarely had time for her and he had forgotten an appointment for a dinner she had planned for them and some of her colleagues. He had planned to make up for it in the evening, wanted to surprise her with flowers and a romantic evening.

And then the attacks had changed his life and the world – and had taken away the chance to say sorry forever…

___'Cause I've lost loved ones in my life  
Who never knew how much I loved them  
Now I live with the regret  
That my true feelings for them never were revealed  
_

___So I made a promise to myself_

___To say each day how much she means to me  
And avoid that circumstance  
Where there's no second chance_

___To tell her how I feel_

He made a decision. There was no way that something like that would happen ever again. No more excuses, no more adjourning.

"Stella?" he softly asked while he tenderly moved his fingers up and down her right arm which was wrapped around his chest.

First she didn't respond, but then she suddenly jumped up.

"What?!? What is it, Mac? Is everything okay, are you alright?"

She looked around, momentarily confused, until she realized that she was more or less lying in his arms. She blinked a few times before she looked into his eyes.

"Hey there…" he smiled. "Relax, everything's fine with me. It's just – I need to tell you something. It's important and it can't wait until tomorrow."

Stella didn't wonder anymore. As she had figured before, she had to wait until he was ready to open up. And if this was in the middle of the night – so be it…

"Okay…" she curiously encouraged him to go on.

His eyes locked with hers, he softly took her face in his hands and took a deep breath.

"I know it isn't nice to wake you up in the middle of the night and tell you something like this without prior warning and I know that if you wanna kick me out right away, you have every right to do so…"

"I won't, I promise…" she quietly interrupted him, sensing that this had to be a very special moment.

"Stella, I … I love you. I was always so scared to tell you because I was too afraid you wouldn't feel the same. But today… I can't explain it, but when I got the news about this attack, I just thought that he never had a chance like this. He never met a woman he deeply loved and even if he would have, probably never would have told her before going back. And then it was too late… And it reminded me so much of the day Claire died and that I never had a chance to tell her I'm sorry… I just had to wake you up and tell you now, I didn't want to risk another minute…"

Stella waited a moment, she didn't want to interrupt him. When she was sure he had said all he wanted to say, she lifted herself up a little and pressed a soft kiss on his lips.

"For something like this, you can wake me any time you want," she breathed with a tender smile.

She leaned her back against his chest, feeling his body close to hers. Mac started tenderly moving his fingers along her cheek, down the side of her neck, slowly focusing on her cleavage.

**___BRRRRRRR…_**

Stella sighed and reluctantly grabbed for Mac's hand. She carefully took it out of her cleavage and placed it next to her on the mattress before turning around to get her cell phone.

"Guess you just set off the alarm," she whispered teasingly.

"Hey, Danny… No, it's okay – I told you I'm on call and you could reach me any time, right? So, what is it? … Uhum. Anything special I need to know? … No, I think you can handle this one alone. You can brief me tomorrow, just follow protocol. … Mac? No, why should he mind? For now I'm in charge, just go ahead…"

Mac smiled at her while she talked to Danny. No, he certainly didn't mind that she told Danny to process alone so that she could stay.

"Where did we stop?" she asked expectantly after she had ended the call.

He leaned in to kiss her passionately, his hand moving up her thigh to rest on her hip as the kiss increased in intensity. She felt a need start to build... a need for him... Her fingers moved lightly across the small of his back, the touch eliciting a moan from him.

He moved his hands to her face, running his fingers across her cheeks before winding them in her curly hair. She moved a little away from him, making it easier for him to undress her. Then she rolled over onto her back, while his fingers wandered up and down her stomach, every now and then lightly brushing against the bottom side of her breasts. Stella's eyes closed instinctively.

Mac shifted his body to his right side and started planting little kisses from her collarbone down to her belly button, causing her to shiver and moan softly. His hands wandered sensually over her body, carefully exploring every part of it, almost shyly working their way down to lower regions.

Stella was overwhelmed by the attention he was showing her. She grabbed the sheets with both hands while he teased her by touching and caressing her thigh for what felt like hours before his hand finally moved to the place where she wanted it most. He touched her in ways that made her quake beneath his caresses. He smiled as he heard his name on her lips, whispered in passionate pleas when he briefly left her body to finally undress himself. He wanted to make sure that she knew how much he loved her and he wanted to show her every moment from now on.

___If tomorrow never comes  
Will she know how much I loved her  
Did I try in every way to show her every day  
That she's my only one  
_

___And if my time on earth were through  
And she must face the world without me  
Is the love I gave her in the past  
Gonna be enough to last  
_

___If tomorrow never comes  
_

He carefully moved himself on top of her, his hands still fondling her, loving her, while his eyes were searching for approval to go on. When he removed his hands and let his lips and tongue take over, she gasped in a mixture of pleasure and surprise. It made him dizzy with desire, and he knew as much as he was enjoying teasing her, that he wouldn't be able to control himself much longer.

"Mac! Please!"

He moved back up and gathered her into his arms, starting to softly suck the tender skin between her shoulder and neck as they found a rhythm. Her sounds of pleasure fueled his hunger for her... He was close and he could feel that she was, too. Suddenly he felt her arms tightly wrapping around his hips, pulling him closer to her.

"Stella, I can't…" he warned hoarsely while she pressed her lips together to suppress a moan.

"Don't, just let go…" she breathed heavily. He didn't need anything more, he was too close to the edge to go back.

XXXXX

They listened to the wild thumping of the other's heart as they stayed melded together, both trying to regain control over their breathing. Mac pulled back just enough to look at her. He watched her for a moment, before he kissed her... sweetly... lovingly... longingly…

___So tell that someone that you love  
Just what you're thinking of  
_

___If tomorrow never comes_

He felt overwhelmingly intoxicated, kissing her deeply and cravingly, feeling her body so close and responsive. He felt the warmth and softness of her skin under his exploring hands. Her touch, her sighs, her body arching against his, her passionate and tender kisses…

It felt so good - so right.

**The End**

_-_

**xxxlittlesheepxxx**


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